Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Novelty theory (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 00:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Novelty theory

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Novelty theory
• Articles for deletion/Novelty theory (2nd nomination)

Novelty theory (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

WP:BOLLOCKS. No WP:RS. No WP:GNG. Not even WP:FRINGE-worthy. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. The article is well-sourced, and is written from a neutral point of view. Even though the idea is ridiculous, that doesn't mean we can't have an article on it. BradV 00:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Whallawhosawhat'sthat? Are you reading the same article I'm reading? "According to the timewave graph, great periods of novelty occurred about 4 billion years ago when Earth was formed, 65 million years ago when dinosaurs were extinct and mammals expanded, about 10,000 years ago after the end of the ice age, around late 18th century when social and scientific revolutions progressed, during the sixties, around the time of 9/11, and with coming novelty periods in November 2008, October 2010, with the novelty progressing towards the infinity on 21st December 2012" Do we have any WP:FRINGE#Independent sources? Do we have any way to verify this belief to people other than the wackos? Has anyone noticed who isn't a true believer? The answers to all these questions is "no". What's more, the answer to the question, "should we keep this article?" is "no". ScienceApologist (talk) 00:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Since it doesn't appear to be showing up in the box on the right, here's the first AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Novelty theory. — Scientizzle 00:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - I've got no objections to articles about crackpot theories. Wikipedia's criterion for inclusion is not the correctness of a belief, just the verifiable fact that this belief exists and is somewhat well known; we've got articles on Atlantis, UFOs, Flat Earth theory and Morgellon's disease and none of those are likely to be true, but these beliefs have been reported in mainstream media. That's where this article falls down. There are no reliable secondary sources that indicate that this kookery is in any way notable. Any crackpot can come up with a bizarre theory, but as long as that theory is confined to self-published stuff and a small circle of like-minded kooks it shouldn't be documented here. Reyk _YO! 01:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Delete - no reliable sources. Anything of value here—and I actually haven't been able to spot anything—can be merged into the section of Terrence McKenna devoted to this topic. looie496 (talk) 01:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Redirect to Terence_McKenna#Novelty_theory_and_.22Time_Wave:_Zero_Point.22, as suggested by dab. It is true that the article is Wikipedia:Complete bollocks and, after more than 4 years, its only references are some guys' websites. However, the real reason to delete is that it does not seem to be notable; I couldn't find anything resembling a reliable reference. All I found were some lightweight websites, a thing on YouTube, an answerbag question, a casual discussion on www.BadAstronomy.com, this article, and its mirrors. The article should not be salted; there seem to be reliable sources for several social science theories of the same name, which are unrelated to this article, and which may be notable. Cardamon (talk) 04:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I actually did search Google Books and Google Scholar for "Novelty theory", with the results that I described. I have now searched for "Timewave zero" and "Time wave zero". This nonsense does appear to be somewhat notable, with the first term being more common. I now support redirecting to Terence McKenna, as the present article adds no value to Wikipedia. Failing that, the article should be moved over redirect to Timewave zero which is the more common name for this nonsense, and one that is not used by social scientists. Cardamon (talk) 01:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per Reyk's excellent reasoning. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:CB. Stifle (talk) 11:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Non notable, crackpot theory. If it was a notable crackpot theory, I would vote keep, but a ton of google hits of sites dedicated to this theory does not make it notable; lack of any historical or independent coverage makes it non-notable. Theseeker4 (talk) 15:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:V and WP:CB Verbal chat 17:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• redirect to Terence_McKenna#Novelty_theory_and_.22Time_Wave:_Zero_Point.22. Keep the edit history. Redirects are cheap. --dab (𒁳) 18:17, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• Google Web is not the only search tool in the world. Google Books turns up a book by Graham St. John, Postdoctoral Research Fellow the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, which addresses McKenna's Novelty Theory and Timewave Zero on pages 214–218. (The reported criticism of the idea by Gyrus is quite amusing.) ISBN 9781591796114 pages 20–21 and 309 discusses McKenna's theory and xyr slide-the-date-up-and-down methodology, and, amusingly, gives two different dates for what McKenna claimed to be the zero point. Daniel Wojcik, Associate Professor of English and Folklore Studies at the University of Oregon, deals with the subject on page 293 of ISBN 9780415263245. And those are in addition to the web pages linked-to by the article itself, including the criticisms by Watkins and Meyer. The answers to ScienceApologist's questions are in fact "yes". People other than true believers have noticed, and written about this idea; and we do have independent sources. Reyk's reasoning, echoed by others, may be excellent, but based as it is on the premise that there are no independent sources to be had, it completely falls apart in the face of the aforementioned books and web sites. Uncle G (talk) 18:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Let's do this the right way. Start writing the section in Terence_McKenna#Novelty_theory_and_.22Time_Wave:_Zero_Point.22 with those sources and then, when the section seems worthy of WP:CFORK, make the content fork. The current article is a travesty and not worth keeping. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• (ec) Keep per Uncle G, who had the same idea of looking for academic sources, but was faster and more thorough. Looks to me as if McKennan was a precursor of postmodernism and Fashionable Nonsense. Simultaneously. I particularly recommend Autopsy for a Mathematical Hallucination? by Matthew Watkins. This is obviously a couple of scientists telling great bullshit with a straight face. It's an interesting sociological experiment.

Anyway, that's only an attempt to explain how it came to pass that this meets Wikipedia's notability standard. The only thing that matters is that it does.

By the way, there is also a serious "novelty theory" in psychology, which is probably a lot more important. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

and I thought that's what it would be about until I read the article--so at the very least we'd need to change the title here. DGG (talk) 03:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - it may be WP:BOLLOCKS but Uncle G's sources above show that it is notable WP:BOLLOCKS, so it should stay. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - No matter how strange it is it's still a somewhat well known idea in the underground and is not very old so how do you expect there to be much more on the topic. Not to mention how foolish you would all look if he was right. Let's say if we make it to Dec. 24, 2012 then we get rid of it. --207.118.243.39 (talk) 02:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC) — 207.118.243.39 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Uh, Keep - Terence_McKenna is obviously notable, and this was one of his major talking points. If every one of his theories and ideas was treated with proper detail in his bio, that article would swell to an unmanageable size and there would be cries to start subbing out again. If i were to support any change in this article, it would be only to more clearly frame the subject as McKenna's brainchild, which i personally believe it already does adequately. --PopeFauveXXIII (talk) 10:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - DISCLAIMER: I am the creator of the article, thus biased. I am under no illusions about the nature of the material however. I vote keep for the reasons iterated repeatedly above.

Prior arguments boil down to two:

• "Delete: The idea is poppycock I've never heard of."
• "Keep: The idea is poppycock I've heard of."

The latter is the legitimate one. The primary source for Novelty Theory is currently published by Harper Collins. Another by Bantam. This negates the objections to self-published work. The McKenna bibliographies are, while mostly disreputable, extensive. Therefore notable. Therefore article worthy.

Stop nomininating this article for deletion simply because it's about a crackpot theory. It's a famous crackpot theory. End of discussion.— Clarknova (talk) 20:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - A basic understanding of the theory is necessary to make a legitimate argument either way. If it's a farce of scientific theory as the disclaimer in Fractal Time states it's still notable, even merely for entertainment. Wikipedia is not a scientific journal. This page isn't for discussing weather or not he was right. And as far as ideas invoked by psychedelic drugs this one is fairly conservative. There isn't really anything to argue about here. Keep it. End of story. --Jyffeh (talk) 00:41, 28 November 2008 (UTC) — Jyffeh (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Keep per Uncle G. I think his citations satisfy WP:RS and as far as crackpot theories I think we can do far worse. This is not such a bad specimen and it makes for an interesting read. What more can you ask for? Dr.K. (talk) 02:02, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Appears to be notable enough to appear at least on McKenna's article. However, McKenna's article is already quite long. The most "correct" action would be merging, to eventually make a fork, and wind up with the same article that we started with. Let's skip the useless bureaucratic steps on behalf on the encyclopedia. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep as per Uncle G--there are reliable sources, and the topic is, in fact, notable, making Reyk's reasoning to be moot; and as per clarknova--whether or not it's poppycock has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it's notable. "It's a famous crackpot theory" is a perfectly legitimate reason for an article's existence. --heah 21:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep per Uncle G et al. I don't see any claim of objective scientific truth in the article (nor did McKenna make that claim himself AFAIK), and WP has no brief to ignore crackpots -- at least not notable ones. -- DaveSeidel (talk) 23:55, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

References

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.